clipping with no boosting

[Neil Ogilvie]

I have just had a chance to use my new kick drum mic - a Sennheiser MD21u.

I positioned it about an inch from the beater head to get that punchy kick sound.

OMG! It was peaking with no any sort of boosting (pre-amplifying)!
I had to move it a little away from the head to stop the clipping.

I couldn't believe it. Do they make Dynamic mics this hot? or this some sort fo 'magic' mic?

Neil

[F_cksia]

and what was the drummer like?

don't have a pad-switch on the mic or pre-amp/ console/ soundcard?

maybe you're using a really flexible kick-skin, so that the beater hits the microphone? :P:P:P

[James HE]

ouch! 1 inch is way to close. sheesh!

8" or 9" is close enough. I've have tried closer trying to get more slap and even if the mic wasen't clipping it still sounded shite. I like to mic outside the kick but some of you drummers are just demented!

what kind of beater are you using? probably needs to be hard plastic for what you are going for.

[Neil Ogilvie]

The drummer was very good - hit it hard everytime. (they were a nu-punk band btw).

He used a plastic headed beater and pretty much standard tuning on the kick drum, so it wasn't too slack as far as I know.

I did end up moving it away from teh head, I was jsut curious to hear what sort of sound I could get from having the mic this close - to be honest, I kinda liked it.